Fully Autonomous Vehicles: Visions of the future or still reality?

By Michael Nikowitz

Since the invention of the modern car in 1886 by Karl Benz, it has been bringing pleasure to every one of us. For nearly 130 years, the automotive industry has been a force for innovation and economic growth.

Now, in the 21st century, the pace of innovation is speeding up and the automotive sector is facing a new kind of technological revolution as it approaches "fully autonomous vehicles". Self-driving vehicles clearly impact the experience of passengers.
Sooner or later, it may become possible for automobiles to drive autonomously and successfully to their destinations.

How will this technology change the relationship between people and their automobiles?
How will self-driving vehicles change the transportation sector and our freedom of mobility as we know it today?
If autonomous cars succeed, how will they change our world?

This book has a focus on autonomous driving from various perspectives; it looks at what an autonomous car is and how it may come to be commonplace on our roads, as well as the factors that could prevent its development and adoption.
It also reviews the potential benefits of these vehicles and how they might impact different aspects of our lives. The book also examines the challenges and hurdles that face driverless vehicles and considers some solutions to these obstacles to enable successful market penetration.
Aside from the social and economic consequences of autonomous vehicles, this book also emphasizes the technical point of view. It describes the technological inventions and engineering concepts which are necessary to operate self-driving vehicles.
In summary, this book provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of the art in driverless cars and makes some projections for the future.
Autonomous cars no longer exist merely in the minds of children and science fiction writers. They are real and will be on roads sooner than you think

• Language: English
• Publisher: epubli
• Release date: Oct 12, 2015
• ISBN: 9783737567367

Book preview

1        Introduction

Visions of unmanned and autonomous machines and vehicles are not new. Experiments with unmanned aircrafts began in the First World War and a radio controlled car was demonstrated in the streets of New York in 1925 [2].

Autonomous vehicles have long been predicted in science fiction and discussed in popular science media.

Recently, major corporations have announced plans to begin selling fully autonomous vehicles in the near future.

Driverless vehicles are no longer restricted to the realm of science fiction - they are in development and will be operating on our roads sooner than many would imagine.

This section defines the terms autonomous, self-driving, and robotic as they refer to vehicles and provides examples of each. Further, this section points out why these vehicles are so popular nowadays and why they might become indispensable for our society.

1.1         Definition of (fully) autonomous vehicles

Right now, there exists no consensus definition of autonomous vehicles. The most typical designations are: driverless, (fully) autonomous, self-driving or robotic.

Currently, the descriptions driverless or fully autonomous vehicles are representing the most common phrases by containing: a vehicle (car) with total autonomy.

As there is no consensus definition, two working definitions will be used here:

•         Definition 1: a vehicle that is designed to travel between destinations without a human operator.

•         Definition 2: a vehicle which is able to perceive its environment, decide autonomously which route to take to its destination, and conduct itself along the route it selects.

Certain milestones of autonomy must be achieved before a vehicle can be considered fully autonomous (a detailed description is mentioned in chapter 5).

For a common understanding, the terms autonomous and driverless vehicles will be used interchangeably in this report.

1.2          What does a driverless vehicle look like?

The concept of a driverless vehicle is not totally new.

Even in the year 1957 people thought about what future cars would look like. Fig 1 shows a common portrayal. Here we see a family of four playing a board game while their futuristic electric car drives itself. As this advert from 1957 suggests, the aspiration for self-driving cars is one that has been held for at least half of a century. The text that accompanied the original read: ELECTRICITY MAY BE THE DRIVER. One day your car may speed along an electric super-highway, its speed and steering automatically controlled by electronic devices embedded in the road. Highways will be made safe by electricity! No traffic jams…no collisions…no driver fatigue.

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Fig 1: Imagination of a self-driving car from 1957 [3]

However, when today people are asked what they imagine driverless vehicles to be like, their responses may differ depending on their generation and their knowledge of current driverless car engineering.

The younger and elderly generation imagine robotic vehicles when they think about driverless vehicles. As this description consists of the two terms robotic and vehicle, many adult (and especially elderly) people envision a robot driving a conventional car. An illustration is shown in Fig 2. This figure shows a robot trying to drive a vehicle during the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA’s) Robotic Challenge.

This challenge is a competition between teams of robot and software engineers who are trying to develop robots capable of assisting humans in responding to natural and man-made disasters. It was designed to be extremely difficult. Participating teams, representing some of the most advanced robotics research and development organizations in the world, collaborate and innovate on a very short timeline to develop the hardware, software, sensors, and human-machine control interfaces that will enable their robots to complete a series of challenge tasks selected by DARPA for their relevance to disaster response [4].

While the elderly generation imagines a robot (more or less a humanoid one) driving a conventional car, the younger generation thinks about a robot that can transform itself into a conventional car. This conceptualization might be primarily informed by popular movies like The Transformers, as it can be seen in Fig 3. At least from today’s point of view, we are far away from such a technology and it might be questionable if we will ever develop such a technology.

Fig 2: What people have in mind when they think about robotic cars- a car driven by a robot during the DARPA- challenge [5]

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Fig 3: A robot that can transform itself into a car [5]

Today’s autonomous cars - or robotic vehicles- neither consist of a humanoid robot driving a vehicle, nor a robot transforming itself into a vehicle. Rather, it looks more or less like a conventional vehicle and consists of an array of sensors, actuators, computers, power electronics and communication tools. That’s the reason why the term robotic vehicle is not typically applied to contemporary autonomous vehicles. On the one hand it is obvious that these vehicles look and ride like conventional ones, but on the other hand people feel uneasy when they think about robots. Who wants to have a creepy ride?

It’s the same reason why unmanned public transport systems (i.e. subways) are also not called robotic subways.

Instead of using the term robotic, they are mostly named as autonomous.